Democrats win: who gets credit?

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Matt Stoller:
Rahm Emanuel did his best to force Howard Dean to move money out of party building and into his terrible TV ad program that lost IL-06. He sniped at Dean, at Moveon, at George Soros, at blogs, at anyone he could. He ran scared, and he put his thumb on the scale against liberal Democrats. He couldn't even win in his own backyard, with the milquetoast Dan Seals and charismatically moderate Tammy Duckworth. Most significantly, for a good amount of time he didn't want Democrats to mention Iraq, period. If Rahm Emanuel were actually been a loyal Democrat instead of someone hellbent on sabotaging liberals, imagine how many seats we could have picked up.
Rick Perlstein (TNR subscription req'd):
The Democrats have won back the House. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), nearly tripped over himself on the way to the microphone to claim the credit. In fact, while the tidal wave in the House looks like a bit of strategic genius by Emanuel--and pundits are starting to call it that way (Howard Fineman on MSNBC noted that the Democrats even picked up a seat in Kentucky, where the 3rd District candidate was John Yarmuth--"Emanuel's fourth choice!" Fineman exclaimed, as if in awe of the power possessed by Emanuel's mere table scraps)--in race after race, it actually represents the apotheosis of forces Emanuel has doubted all long: the netroots....
Go Bloggers! Beat Insiders! This victory is ours, OURS, OURS!!!! Bloohahahaha! Um, OK, back to work...

UPDATE: Credit where credit is due: Rahm Emanuel did a great job of fundraising and had an enormous energy level and fought very hard for this victory. I didn't agree with every single decision he made, but I shouldn't snipe at him quite so much. The blogosphere is only a small part of the progressive movement, and party insiders are needed too.

What's that saying: Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. Poor Republican orphans.

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